Tag Archives: Robert de Clifford

Pendragon Castle sits on the east bank of the River Eden off the B6259 in the Mallerstang Valley on the way from Yorkshire into Kirkby Stephen. It’s a square, squat ruin of a tower that was once three storeys tall in a beautiful landscape. It stands on a platform of earth and its walls, what remain of them, are over four meters thick.

The chap best known for owning Pendragon Castle is Hugh de Morville and he probably occupied it after Henry II’s campaign in Scotland. The name de Morville might ring bells. In addition to being Lord of Westmorland he’s also one of the four knights who helpfully murdered Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral in 1170 after listening to Henry II ranting about troublesome priests. Instead of the expected reward de Morville found himself kicked out of his properties with a flea in his ear. Ultimately the castle passed through a couple of families beginning with the de Viponts who were de Morville relations before ending up in Clifford hands through the inheritance of Idonea de Vipont.

We know that Robert de Clifford was given permission to crenellate Pendragon Castle in 1309 but he didn’t have long to enjoy it because he got himself killed at Bannockburn in June 1314. The reign of Edward II was not a comfortable one for the English. In addition to the Scots gaining the upper hand in the Scottish Wars of Independence there was also the small matter of several rebellions against Edward II in England. Robert’s son Roger was executed after the Battle of Boroughbridge. (Click on the image in this paragraph to open a new window for my post on the Battle of Boroughbridge) Ultimately it came back into the Clifford possessions but turned to a pile of rubble after an unfortunate accident with a band of Scots and a blazing torch in 1341.

It was 1660 when Lady Anne Clifford turned her attention to rebuilding Pendragon castle “at great cost and charges.” She noted in her diary that she stayed in Pendragon for three nights on 14 october 1661. She went on to renovate Mallerstang Chapel as well as ensuring that Pendragon had all the amenities including a brewhouse and a wash house. Spence records that the hearth returns reveal that there were twelve fire places in Pendragon and that Lady Anne Clifford wrote her will whilst she stayed there.

After Lady Anne Clifford’s time it returned to ruin and even in the seventeenth century during her time it had acquired the tradition of belonging to Uther Pendragon – in one version he died there when the Saxons took the castle. But just so we’re quite clear the ruins on display today were definitely built in the twelfth century as Mallerstang Castle although Westwood and Simpson observe that the de Cliffords might have renamed it during the reign of Edward I when there was a fashion of all things Arthurian.

George Clifford was born on August 8, 1558 in Brougham Castle. In 1570 he became the third Earl of Cumberland and also the last of the direct line of Robert de Clifford’s descendants. He willed his title and estates to his younger brother (breaking an entail dating from the reign of Edward II and ensuring a legal battle which lasted most of his daughter’s life).

George was eleven-years-old when he became the earl, so orphaned as he was , the monarch held his wardship. Elizabeth could have kept young George at horse, at Court or sold the wardship either to George’s family or to the highest bidder. She chose to do the latter. Francis Russell, the puritan Earl of Bedford purchased young George’s wardship and in due course, 1577, married him off to his own youngest daughter Margaret. George spent the remainder of his childhood and adolescence in the south of England and in Cambridge where he studied mathematics and geography.

When he grew up George was bitten by the seafaring bug. He used the revenue from his estates to fund voyages of exploration. He also had a bit of a gambling habit. In short he was a stereotypical Elizabethan roistering seafarer/courtier with an interest in mathematics and a link to Mary Queen of Scots (he was on the jury during her trial). His first voyage was in 1586 and he sailed alongside two other vessels sponsored by Sir Walter Raleigh. Clifford found himself a very long way from Skipton. He sailed to Brazil where he took a share of a Portuguese prize vessel. It was a slaver – so George’s loot on this occasion came from slavery.

George’s son was born in 1584. He was called Francis but died five years later just before his youngest sibling was born. Francis’s brother Robert also died young. This left only one child born in 1590 – a girl called Anne. It is from her diaries that we learn much about George’s spending habits, his lady friend and the hostility that came to exist between himself and his wife. He may have made money from his voyages but he lost it betting on horses and the outcome of jousts. When he died it took the next sixty years to return the estate to some sort of financial order.

In 1588 George commanded the Elizabeth Bonaventure against the Spanish Armada and two years later became the Queen’s champion jouster wearing her glove pinned to his hat. Clifford’s tournament armour can be seen today in the Metropolitan Museum in New York (apologies for the photograph I’ve become much better at indoor shots since I took this one but it might be a while until I get the opportunity to take another.) In 1592 he was made a Knight of the Garter. By 1600 George was a founder member of the East India Company and in 1603 he became the Lord Warden of the West Marches – so based in Carlisle. As this paragraph reveals George was a busy man and was often away from home either at court or seeing to his various nautical adventures. It was expedient for the family to live in London where George’s interests lay but as time passed he and Margaret went their separate ways.

Following the death of Queen Elizabeth, which Lady Anne Clifford described in her diaries, George went north to greet the man whose mother he’d helped to condemn. It was said that George’s retinue looked rather more splendid than the new king’s did.

Countess Margaret was not amused by her husband’s debts or affair with a ‘lady of quality’. Nor was she amused that their daughter Anne had effectively been bypassed as Clifford’s heir when he made his will. He bequeathed her £15,000 making her a respectable heiress but ignoring what was hers by right of birth. He may have done this because he was aware of the burden of debt that lay on the estate.

George died on October 30 1605 in London but he is buried in Holy Trinity Church, Skipton. These three pictures show detail from his tomb.

Double click on the portrait of Clifford to open a new window and see what The Peerage has to say about George.

Robert de Clifford, 3rd Baron de Clifford (5 November 1305–20 May 1344) was Roger Clifford’s brother. Roger had been hanged in the aftermath of the Battle of Boroughbridge in 1322. The family properties and titles taken back by the crown. Following the downfall of Edward II, Robert was reinstated to the lands and titles which belonged to the Clifford family. He married Isabel de Berkeley at Berkeley Castle in 1328 (yes, I know we’re back to red hot pokers but just let’s ignore that link shall we?) and they had seven children. It would appear that the early years of the reign of Edward III was a quiet one for the Cliffords.

However a little digging reveals yet another shady marriage linked to the power politics of the north and hurtles the blog straight back into the chaotic times of Edward II. Here’s what Yerburgh had to say in 1912 from his text entitled Some Notes on Our Family History. The comments in italics are mine:

There is not much to be said about Robert de Clifford (damned by faint praise). In the account of the Dacres of Gillsland his betrothal to Margaret de Multon and her elopement with Ranulph de Dacre will be found. He rose with the fortunes of Edward III., and he recovered the inheritance which his elder brother’s troubles and misfortunes had lost for a while. He was a favourite with both the Edwards of England and Scotland, and he made a great match for his young son to a family of great power in the North, and died after he had been Lord of Skipton in possession twenty-eight years.

Not an exciting twenty-eight years then…except of course this is a man who was involved with the politics and interminable war with Scotland. So his ‘quiet’ was probably our ‘quite exciting’, all things considered.The Collectanea Cliffordiana by Arthur Clifford offers some further information which confirms this. Just as his forefathers had played their role on the borders so to did the third baron. He entertained Edward Baliol who was King of Scotland at Brough and at Appleby and when he wasn’t entertaining the king he was conducting warfare against him (must have made for interesting after dinner conversation). He is recorded as having taken his turn as warden of the West Marches in the eighth year of Edward III’s reign. His co-warden was a man called Ranulph de Dacre which brings us back to Yerburgh’s so-called ‘elopement’ which turns out not to be a romantic interlude but to be the abduction of a minor in order to acquire land and more importantly power.

Margaret de Moulton’s family held the Barony of Gilsland. She was her father Thomas’s only heir. She had been married at the age of seven to Robert Clifford in that an agreement was reached – the actual ‘marriage’ would have taken place when Margaret came of age. In the meantime she clearly remained at home. Other young brides might have found themselves being brought up in the houses which they would one day supervise. It depended entirely upon the families, the arrangements and the fastness of the contracts that the two groups made. As it was the Clifford family were going through tricky times. King Edward II, who always had his eye on ways to make money, claimed her as his ward and sent her to Warwick Castle, from where Ranulph abducted her when she was thirteen. The Barony of Gilsland was right on the edge of England. It was an important feature in the geography and politics of the borders.

Ranulph de Dacre was pardoned at the end of October 1317 “for stealing awai in the nighte out of the king’s custody from his Castell of Warwick of Margaret, daughter and heir of Thomas of Molton of Gilsland, whoe helde of ye Kinge in capite, and was within age, whearof the sayd Ranulphe standeth indighted in Curis Regis.” Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmoreland Antiquarian, V4, P470. The marriage and the accruement of power was one of the factors which turned Dacre into Lord Dacre. The other factor was the salient point that border barons could behave rather badly in their own time so long as they kept the Scots out of England when required to do so.

It is possible to surmise that Edward II cannot have been very happy about pardoning Dacre as Ranulph was involved in the judicial murder, of Edward II’s favourite, Piers Gaveston, in 1312. Ranolph was pardoned for any part he had taken in the death of Piers in 1313, as were the other conspirators including Ranulph’s father and brother.

As for Ranulph and Robert Clifford, they clearly arrived at a consensus given their roles as joint wardens and indeed survivors of the nasty political games of the period. The Lannercost Chronicle recorded the marriage between Robert and Margaret but also that there had been a pre-contract between Thomas de Moulton and William de Dacre before the Clifford contract which again wasn’t unusual and reflects the way in which families negotiated with one another and jockeyed for position within society. The concept of negotiation, pre-contract and contract were important ones because a pre-contract was as legally binding as the actual thing – so having promised Margaret to the Dacres, Thomas should not have arrived at an arrangement with the Cliffords – turning Margaret’s abduction from a moral blackspot into a fine and chivalrous deed (the sentence is best read in an ironic tone) .

As for Isobel de Berkeley, well it turns out that women who married into and out of the Clifford family weren’t always particularly good at doing what the monarch, or even their fathers, wanted them to do. She married again after a brief widowhood. In 1345 she had to pay a fine and receive a pardon for marrying a chap called Sir Thomas de Musgrave without getting royal permission to do so first. I’d like to think it was a love match but no doubt a bit more digging will uncover an unpleasant matrimonial tale …it makes me glad to come from a long line of peasants.

Before leaving the troubled reign of Edward II for the calmer waters of the Hundred Years War it is time to conclude with the story of Robert Clifford’s wife Maud – or what we know of it. As is often the case at this time sources provide information about Maud’s birth and marriage as well financial snippets pertaining to her value in terms of estate and marriageability but no insight into her personality or mind.

Maud de Clare was born on the Welsh Marches, the daughter of Thomas de Clare and Julianna FitzMaurice. The family held land in Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Norfolk and Ireland. Maud and her sister were eligible brides and would ultimately become even more wealthy but before a series of male deaths within the Clare family brought that to pass Maud was married to Robert de Clifford in 1295 at the age of about nineteen keeping old alliances strong and strengthening the Clifford family coffers.

Maud and Robert had four children: Roger, who inherited the title upon his father’s death in 1314 but who fought on the losing side at the Battle of Boroughbridge in 1322, his brother Robert who regained the family titles and estates in 1327; a daughter Idonea who marries into the Percy family and another daughter Margaret whose own marriage was not without its difficulties (more of that anon).

Maud, widowed in 1314, was an heiress and heiresses were having a tricky time of things during the reign of Edward II. There are many accounts of abductions and forced marriages. We know that Maud was at Bowes in 1315 and we know that she was kidnapped by a man called John the Irishman who was a member of Edward II’s household and custodian of Barnard Castle.

He had a pretty unsavoury reputation, as did many of Edward II’s friends, though by this time intermittent border warfare and the frequency of Scottish raiders meant that law and order was declining in the north. Even the March Laws could not protect the weak and powerless from the strong and heavily armed.

In any event, Bowes is close to Barnard Castle and John apparently helped himself to Maud and her chattels. Oddly enough he did not force the widow into a new marriage which would have been the sensible thing to do as she came from an influential family. Perhaps John thought that Edward II would sanction that event at a later date? Or perhaps there was some other game in mind? Who knows what goes on in the mind of a medieval warlord?

Edward II, who was staying in Nottingham at the time, was not terribly amused. He sent Sir William Montacute, Sir Robert de Welle, three more knights and thirty-six esquires and men of arms to Bowes to rescue Maud. There was also to be an enquiry as to what had happened. Maud was rescued but John appears to have suffered no ill effects of having kidnapped and ‘ravist’ Maud other than loosing custody of Barnard Castle. In fact when John was dying in 1317 Edward II’s accounts show that the king spent a lot of money on the care of John – did he regard Maud’s kidnap as something of a prank? Or was there perhaps a sub-text about which history knows nothing? Maud’s views are not recorded but it is known that her son Roger was very anti-Edward and no wonder.

Maud Clifford had, however, met her knight in shining armour. Sir Robert de Welle from Worcestershire was a knight but not necessarily a suitable husband for someone who held important political connections, lands and was a wealthy woman in her own right. Women such as these, even widows, could rarely expect to marry where they chose and Edward II was known for handing over unwilling brides to enrich his favourites.

Maud and Robert were married by 16 December 1315 without the king’s permission. As a consequence of which Edward II took Maud’s dower lands and all the goods in them. They were returned following payment of a large fine (£100). So far so good.

Except of course the plot thickens. Robert de Welle was given power of attorney by his step-son in 1320 but did not join with the Ordainers against the king in 1322 suggesting that de Welle was the King’s man. In fact it appears that Maud’s new husband remained on good terms with Edward II receiving lands and valuables from him through the rest of the king’s reign. In 1323 he became one of the keepers for the Bishopric of Winchester as well as going in 1326 to Scotland to treat with Robert the Bruce and just to show that the armour was a bit on the tarnished side his sister-in-law also complained bitterly about the way he took her property as well as that of his wife’s. He also acquired his step-son’s London properties once Roger was attainted, although this could have been a method for keeping the property in the family. Equally it could have been a touch of that avariciousness that Edward II liked to see in the men around him.

He turns up in Norfolk in 1326 as Lord of Well Hall which was which was held under the Earl of Clare, the capital lord. The text (Notes and Queries, Number 84, June 7, 1851 A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Geneologists, etc.) goes on to note “He died circ. 9 Edw. III.” This means that de Welle died in the ninth year of Edward III’s reign putting it somewhere around 1335 his wife having died in 1327 and de Welle himself having lost the powers he once wielded with the overthrow of Edward II.

Andrew de Harcla or Harclay was knighted in 1303 by Thomas of Lancaster. As the fourth of six sons he would have to make his own way in the world and by 1312 he was on his journey to success. He was sent to Parliament as a knight for Cumberland. It wasn’t long before he became the ‘custos’ for Carlisle and the castle. He started to hold other castles for the king, including Pendragon Castle. Following the death of Robert de Clifford in 1314 at the Battle of Bannockburn he also found himself responsible for Appleby and Brougham Castle while Roger de Clifford was deemed too young to hold the castles in his own name.

De Harcla found himself responsible for the security of the north at a difficult time. Robert Bruce seeing the difficulties that Edward II managed to get himself into with his assorted favourites and bolshy barons (the Lord Ordainers) decided to snaffle some territory. The lifestyle of raiding and warfare was on its way to being endemic by the end of the period. Prior to Bannockburn in the year 1313 Edward Bruce raided the land around Carlisle and following Bannockburn de Harcla found himself besieged for some ten or elven days in 1315 by the Scots with siege engines. Only the rumour that the Earl of Pembroke was on his way with a relieving army and that Edward Bruce had been killed in Ireland sent the Scots on their merry way once more. This initial letter from the Carlisle Charter shows Sir Andrew defending the castle.

King Edward II initially recognised the importance of de Harcla as a stabilising force in the north of the country. In 1320 he gave de Harcla the right to help conserve a recently made truce with the Scots. This meant that there was a degree of interchange between the two sides to ensure that justice was met according to the treaty. This was reinforced in 1322 when Edward gave Sir Andrew power to treat with the Scots – again, initially this seemed to be of benefit to the King. Letters from Thomas of Lancaster to the Scots revealed that the king’s cousin was fermenting rebellion.

In 1322 de Harcla found himself taking the field against Thomas of Lancaster at the Battle of Boroughbridge. Thomas knew that he had to cross the river but when he arrived at the bridge it was held by the king’s men. After a ferocious battle the two leaders made terms. Lancaster tried to remind de Harcla that he owed his knighthood to him and that if he joined the rebellion against Edward II he would be further rewarded. Andrew said no and the two armies settled down for a sleepless night – although unusually it was de Harcla who spent the night out in the cold guarding the bridge while Lancaster and his men were billeted in Boroughbridge. Lancaster is said to have cursed de Harcla saying he would die a traitor’s death within the year.

At first this seemed unlikely, Edward loaded Sir Andrew with rewards for his service including making him the first Earl of Carlisle. Unfortunately de Harcla was not left in peace to enjoy his new title. Before long the Scots were on the march. They laid siege to Norham Castle in the East and pushed south to Byland where an English army were soundly beaten. Edward II did what he did best – he ran away. The Scots plundered Ripon and did nasty things to Beverley.

It was the final straw for de Harcla, despite the fact that his permission to make treaties with the Scots had probably expired by that point he had a cosy little chat in Lochmaben Castle about the possibility of recognising King Robert Bruce and bringing the war to an end. The Lanercost Chronicle roundly denounces de Harcla as a traitor- as indeed did the king- but at least the Chronicle makes the point that the ordinary people would have been very grateful for a bit of law and order and the chance to grow things without the Scots coming along and causing chaos.

Edward had de Harcla arrested in the great hall of Carlisle Castle by Sir Anthony de Lucy. De Lucy was probably quite gleeful about this as he’d had a bit of a land dispute with de Harcla and now got all the property that he wanted…think Monopoly but a bit more dangerous. Sir Andrew was stripped of his earldom and his knighthood and then he was taken out to the gallows at Harraby Hill where he was hung, drawn and quartered and all without the benefit of a trial beforehand. His decapitated head was, apparently, taken to Knaresborough Castle for Edward to inspect before it was placed on a spike with a nice view over London Bridge.

Eventually de Harcla’s sister was allowed to collect up the scattered body parts from their various locations – Carlisle, Newcastle and London to name but three and his remains were interred in the church at Kirkby Stephen.

Ironically Edward was eventually forced to recognise King Robert of Scotland – in part because he’d had his best commander in the north executed for trying to protect Edward’s subjects.